Microsoft.Testing.Extensions.VideoRecorder

Microsoft.Testing.Extensions.VideoRecorder

Microsoft.Testing.Extensions.VideoRecorder is an extension for Microsoft.Testing.Platform that records the screen while your tests run and attaches the captured videos to the test session as artifacts.

Microsoft.Testing.Platform is open source. You can find Microsoft.Testing.Extensions.VideoRecorder code in the microsoft/testfx GitHub repository.

Install the package

dotnet add package Microsoft.Testing.Extensions.VideoRecorder

About

⚠️ Experimental: This extension is currently experimental. The API, CLI options and on-disk format may change in future releases without notice.

This package extends Microsoft.Testing.Platform with screen recording driven by an external ffmpeg process (the only engine that is cross-platform and covers OS screen capture). The screen is recorded continuously for the whole run as a rolling sequence of short segments, and the per-test clips (or a single chaptered session video) are cut from those segments afterwards using each test's timing — so recorded tests can run in parallel and there is no per-test start/stop race.

Prerequisites

ffmpeg must be available — either on the PATH or via an explicit path (VideoRecorderOptions.FfmpegPath). On Windows the recorder uses gdigrab, on macOS avfoundation, on Linux x11grab.

Usage

Recording is opt-in per run. Enable it with --capture-video:

# Record, keeping the video only if a test fails (default). One video per test.
yourtests --capture-video

# Record the whole run into a single chaptered video instead of one per test
yourtests --capture-video always --capture-video-granularity session

# Long run: keep only the last 10 minutes of footage to bound disk usage
yourtests --capture-video always --capture-video-max-duration 600

Command-line options

Programmatic configuration

using Microsoft.Testing.Extensions;

testApplicationBuilder.AddVideoRecorderProvider(options =>
{
    options.FfmpegPath = @"C:\tools\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe"; // optional; defaults to PATH lookup
    options.Format = VideoRecorderFormat.Mp4H264;           // or WebMVp9 (royalty-free)
    options.Granularity = VideoCaptureGranularity.PerTest;  // PerTest (default) / PerSession
    options.PersistMode = VideoRecorderPersistenceMode.OnFailure; // or Always
});

Licensing note

The default Mp4H264 format uses libx264, which is GPL in most ffmpeg builds and H.264 carries patent fees — fine when you bring your own ffmpeg on PATH. A royalty-free WebMVp9 format is provided for any scenario where an ffmpeg binary is bundled/redistributed.